England's keenest football fan, Tony Blair, who can't remember the first game he went to and used to sit in Newcastle's Gallowgate End - even though it didn't have seats then - has come out in favour of keeping the present transfer system. Phew, that should save it then.

As nothing was happening at the New York Millennium Summit last week Blair made a statement on football transfers. The statement only amounted to nine words, 'Dismantling the entire transfer system is not the answer.' With a little help from Alastair Campbell, who unlike his boss does know about football, that was more than enough to make a story. We were told that Blair had the backing of the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder - which he confirmed yesterday - and French President Jacques Chirac.

Don't hold your breath. I well remember attending a European summit meeting when the issue of saving duty free came up. Chirac turned to Blair and said, 'Why are we abolishing it when it's so popular with everyone?' Blair and the rest of Europe's leaders just shrugged their shoulders. Even though none of the elected leaders wanted to get rid of duty free, the Brussels bureaucrats did, and look who won.

'Transfers Herr to stay.' Get it? But The Sun's headline this week was certainly premature. What must be most worrying for those who want to keep the system is the 'setting up of a New Labour-style Transfer Task Force. Worse still, there is talk of adopting the Spanish system where players have a buy-out clause in their contract. This is the one that resulted in Luis Figo moving from Barcelona to Real Madrid for £38 million even though Real are in effect bankrupt.

If they were really serious, Uefa should have blocked the deal or insisted that any fee must be paid up front, not in instalments - but that would be too sensible. Uefa need to introduce financial accountability to the crazy football market and at least there's talk of them introducing a licence which would be withdrawn for serious financial mismanagement.

The intervention from Blair was strange and very un-Blair, because in no way could the keeping of the transfer system be seen as 'populist.' Most fans know that all the talk about 'the end of football' is tosh. The talking points for fans this week have been Keegan's decision not to start with Michael Owen and Chelsea's inability to defend a two-goal lead, not transfers.

Supporters will rightly scoff at any big clubs and big earners who claim that the end of the transfer system will end football as we know it, and laugh at their crocodile tears for the small clubs who they claim will suffer. Since when did they care about the small clubs? The reason for setting up the Premier League in the first place was to direct more money to them and less to the smaller clubs.

The fact is football has always resisted change and some of us are old enough to remember what the big clubs said about the abolition of the maximum wage when players were treated as slaves. You've guessed it - they said it would be the end of football, as we know it.

It's not surprising that the Premier League bosses (or the chairmen at least) were unanimous in their support for maintaining the status quo: it just confirms that they must be wrong. What is more surprising is the attitude of the players' union. You would have thought that ending the 'cattle market' transfer system would have the support of the PFA, particularly as the top players would stand to make even more money than they do now. They apparently argue that they are more worried about the wages of players in the lower divisions, which isn't that surprising given that a lot of them are on silly money and are paid far more than they are worth.

The present system is indefensible and football's claim to be a special case is not justified. It's not often that the Eurocrats get it right but they were right on freedom of contract and they are right about transfers. What other business operates like football, buying and selling workers for millions of pounds they don't have? And what has been done about all the corruption that goes with it, including 'bungs'?